So more than once as of late I’ve been driving home in the wee hours of the morning after being up all night, and I am utterly exhausted. I’m struggling to stay awake while driving, and when I get home I wander to the bedroom, bouncing off walls as I go, I undress, climb into bed, and suddenly I’m wide awake and don’t fall asleep for an hour. If I’d kept driving I’d be sound asleep in a ditch somewhere. Why is it as soon as I hit the sack my brain turns on the ‘time to stay awake’ switch?
Did you catch some daylight before bed? that will fuck with your sleeping hormones.
Sometimes, yeah, but last night I got home around 12:30am and couldn’t fall asleep until after 1am, but I was wiggy as hell on the way home.
I have that problem all the time, too. Falling asleep in front of the tv, so get up and go to bed? Wide awake. falling asleep reading, so turn off the light, wide awake. On a business trip first travel day and falling down jetlagged, get to the hotel and… wide awake.
Great, so it’s not just me. Hopefully answers are forthcoming.
I can relate to this. I can be exhausted, get in bed and actually be comfortable and sometimes it’s as though someone flipped a switch and I just cannot fall asleep.
Unfortunately you need to control your circadian rhythm. That means go to sleep at the same time each night.
If you find you can’t fall asleep regularly, you need to undergo “sleep restriction”. In plain English, this means stay awake until some horrible time in the morning (five hours before you want to wake up) and then go to sleep. (Trust me, you will go right to sleep.) Every week or two, go to bed 15 minutes earlier than the last week. Eventually you’ll have a decent sleep cycle.
I’m a chronic insomniac. It sucks. I sleep for 15 minutes at a time and it takes me 2 hours to fall asleep to begin with. Melatonin supplements help a little bit (I won’t use “real” drugs). For many bad sleepers, it’s a matter of an active mind (definitely in my case).
The only advice I really have is to distract yourself - don’t think abut trying to sleep. Think about whatever it is that you wish you were doing. Or do the backwards counting thing. I prefer the fantasy thing (don’t do the sex fantasy… that’ll wake you up!).
Benadryl (or related generics) help a little, too.
Good luck!
That is an extremely unhelpful suggestion for something that occurs only rarely.
I too have experienced this phenomenon, and I can assure you that my bedtime varies widely FAR, FAR more often than I experience this. A fluctuating bedtime may possibly be a contributing factor for this phenomenon, but it is manifestly not the primary factor, or this would be many times more common than it is.
Eh, this isn’t so bad. Unless you’re counting the milliseconds.It helps to remind yourself while way awake during the day–so you can remember it later :)) or during the sucky moments that you are indeed getting rest/almost sleep vastly different and not-so-bad-don’t-fight than you had pre-stagger into bedroom.
That is, 1) under otherwise normal psychological stress and 2) you don’t suddenly realize that Leo Bloom can go suck it, because he doesn’t always practice what he preaches or what he preaches is sometimes useless.
But it has helped.
I get up at 5am. Staying awake until midnight isn’t a problem. I go to bed around 10pm, and don’t usually fall asleep until after 11. If I go to bed earlier than 10, I’m still falling asleep after 11. If left to my own devices, I’d stay up until 1am and wake up around 9am as that’s how I seem to work. Unfortunately, the need for a paycheck keeps me from this rhythm.
But when I’m awake for 29 hours straight due to work, I would be nice to come home, go to bed, and fall asleep, and not go home, go to bed, and be more awake than I was on the drive home. 
Trust me, I won’t go right to sleep (and I’m rather satisfied when I manage to sleep 5 hours in a row).
I have the same problem as the OP.
It’s unhelpful to me for the opposite reason: I get up at the same time EVERY morning (never sleep in on weekends) and go to bed at the same time. It’s not my circadium rhythm.
When I have these “episodes” even things like melatonin don’t help. There have been times I’ve taken three melatonin and still spent the night awake.
Sadly, though I now know I’m not alone, there doesn’t appear to be a real nice solution to the problem. 